Great Snails and the Grey Stone is a painting by Glen McDonald which was uploaded on October 12th, 2013.
Great Snails and the Grey Stone
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Price
$20,000
Dimensions
21.500 x 29.500 inches
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Title
Great Snails and the Grey Stone
Artist
Glen McDonald
Medium
Painting - Watercolour
Description
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The painting�s centre panel shows the entry and the first cove of the secret door�s green space. This entry wall and cove are designed to sense First Moons on the cusp of Dwarf Winter. The Grey Stone triggers the magic mechanism, and limits the swath of sunlight which strikes the keyhole at sunset on Durin�s Days.
The left panel shows the development of snails into dragon-brood. In the top panel a full grown dragon harries all about him, as does the constellation Draco. The right panel in three repetitions shows Draco and the Little Dipper to the left of the Pole Star, all oriented to match the centre panel. The corner panels depict the Grey Stone at four times of the day and night. The lower sunset panel depicts a Durin�s Day with clouds like silvery trails of snails or dragons.
About the short and tall grey stones: Study of Tolkien�s pictures (Artist #131, 132) indicate that the short stone casts no shadows on the walls, not even on the sunset wall due to the rising floor of the green space there. The Old Thrush on his high perch (202.14) was on the Grey Stone/The Milky Way, therefore a tall stone in the grassy bay is indicated.
A large grey stone lay in the centre of the grass and he stared moodily at it or watched the great snails. They seemed to love the little shut-in bay with its walls of cool rock, and there were many of them of huge size crawling slowly and stickily along its walls. H200.30-.34
I have long wondered what I would say when I got around to the great snails, but today when I looked in Star Names I found this:
Babylonian records allude to some constellations near the pole as a Snail drawn along on the tail of a Dragon that may have been [Draco], while among the inscriptions we find Sir, a Snake, but to which of the sky serpents this applied is uncertain . SN204.05-.08
And in the next paragraph:
But with [the Chald�] people [Draco] was a much longer constellation than with us, winding downwards and in front of Ursa Major, and, even into later times, clasped both of the Bears in its folds; this is shown in manuscripts and books as late as the 17th century, with the combined Artoe et Draco. It still almost encloses Ursa Minor. SN204.14-.19
It may be that Ursa Major and Minor, the Big and Little Dippers are the snails; the brood of Smaug. Again perhaps all constellations are here imagined as the dragon�s snail-brood.
Uploaded
October 12th, 2013
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